1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a rail-guided transport system for persons and material in underground mining and tunnel construction, consisting of a railway network and transport vehicles guided in this railway network.
2. Description of Related Art
A plurality of extensive railway networks exists in the operations of Deutsche Steinkohle AG, on which several hundred transport vehicles are operated. These transport vehicles are, on the one hand, two-track ground railways, but also single-track suspended railways (EHB), which are driven by locomotives or trolleys having a diesel drive or electric (battery) drive.
These transport vehicles are operated by drivers who are trained specifically for this purpose, who control the transport vehicle in a driver's cabin disposed on the transport vehicle, whereby such a driver's cabin is generally present on each side of the transport vehicle.
The plurality of the transport vehicles and the transport operation, which in part occurs in multiple shifts, require a correspondingly great expenditure for driver personnel, which can hardly be reduced, because of the limited travel speed underground, with a simultaneously increasing transport volume. Driving orders that overlap shifts cannot be handled, in part, and this results in an increased need to keep transport capacity available.
In part, manual driving results in great material stresses (during start-up and braking). Furthermore, the driver entry and exit procedures, specifically, represent a major area of accidents for drivers on single-track suspended railways.
A prerequisite for safe operation of the transport systems being discussed is the ability to recognize any object situated in the working space of the transport system, reliably and at any time, and to derive appropriate measures on this basis.
In this connection, human beings as drivers of the transport vehicles represent one of the weakest links in the chain.
Independent, i.e. automatic operation of rail transport, for example, is known and has been in use in German coal mining since the 1980s. However, these systems could only be operated with extraordinary technical and organizational effort (e.g. prohibition against persons being in the vicinity of the vehicles). The introduction of magnetic railway technology using autonomous vehicles, which was originally planned, failed due to great safety requirements, among other things.